19/30: The WIPRO San Francisco {First} Half Marathon
I try not to play favorites with my races as that seems kind of rude. But this might well be one of my favorite races ever.
San Francisco. MB and I had the pleasure of living on the golden coast for a full year in 2010. While I split my time between the east and west coast, my heart was always always in San Fran {mostly because he was there but a lotly because it's such a marvelous place}. The city itself is nothing exciting which makes it amazing. It's quiet and navigable and fun. The thing I like most are the suburbs -- Palo Alto, Mountain View, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay. We had such a beautiful long weekend vaca, it was really hard to come back.
The first half course was AMAZING. WIPRO runs a LOT of races on the big day: an ultra, a full, 2 halves, a 5K and a kid's fun run. The first half marathon takes you from the Embarcadaro by the piers through the Wharves, up and around Chrissy Field and of course across the bridge and back. It was a challenging, BEAUTIFUL course. The whole way I kept looking around thinking, am I running this? How lucky am I?!
Running the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm big on histrionics but let me tell you, without drama, that this was the highlight of running {and of of the highlights of my actual} life. The GGB is breathtaking by itself when you're slogging over it over on foot or coasting on your rented bicycle {unknowing that Saucilito is really not that cool and Timuron is really what you should ride to but that it's far and hot in the valley...I digress}. While I decided a while back I'm going to quit running for time {I should write about that}, if I had been it would have been right out the window. There were so many times were I would get lost looking across the bay taking in the beauty that I was walking and taking pictures. And it was awesome. Never mind that the weather must have gotten the memo that a ton of people would be running across the bridge and through the city so the day was clear and beautiful which is super rare for SF that early in the AM.
The race was well organized and well run. I'm not sure how many people took off from the many start lines but it felt like there was just 1. Me. I knew exactly where to go every step of the way from the uncrowded, low key packet pick up, to driving 45 minutes from Mountain View where we stayed to park, to walking to the start line, to loading on the bus to take me BACK to the start when I was done {the first half was point to point}, to MB being able to STRAIGHT CHILL in the host hotel and wait for me so he was comfortable and warm. The race was flawless. I was so impressed I compared it to a run Disney event -- I HIGHLY recommend making the journey out to the west coast for this race.
WELL STAFFED. There were SO MANY volunteers which as it turns out is SO CRITICAL to my personal success on race day. There was never a shortage on my course of peeps in orange shirts handing out water or Harley riding course monitors keeping us all on track and safe. I appreciate this attention to detail really more than I can say after so many races were woefully understaffed.
MB's shirt is a throw back to my FIRST half marathon where came to cheer me on. I wish I could tell him then that he'd be doing so much standing and wearing that shirt.
WIPRO also had this cool app that MB downloaded and used to track me on race day. It showed me on a map which he really liked. Overall this was my BEST solo racecation experience. I'm excited to go back next year to do the second half marathon {extra bling} and the year after for the triple crown!
How were your runs this weekend?
